. Then you're comin'? I thought you'd be game."

I slipped into my boots, tied on my puttees, slung a bandolier with
ten rounds of ball cartridge over my shoulder, and groped for my rifle
on the rack beneath the shrapnel-shivered joists. Bill and I crept
downstairs and stole out into the open.

"Gawd! that puts the cawbwebs out of one's froat," whispered my mate
as he gulped down mighty mouthfuls of cold night air. "This is great.
I couldn't sleep."

"But we'll never hit a duck to-night," I whispered, my mind reverting
to the white-breasted fowl which we had seen in an adjoining marsh
that morning when coming back from the firing line. "Its madness to
dream of hitting one with a bullet."

"Maybe yes and maybe no," said my mate, stumbling across the midden
and floundering into the field on the other side.

We came to the edge of the marsh and halted for a moment. In front of
us lay a dark pool, still as death and fringed with long grass and
osier beds. A mournful breeze blew across the place, raising a (p. 134)
plaintive croon, half of resignation and half of protest from the
osiers and grasses as it passed. A little distance away the skeleton
of a house stood up naked against the sky, the cold stars shining
through its shattered rafters. "'Twas shelled like 'ell, that 'ouse,"
whispered Bill, leaning on his rifle and fixing his eyes on the ruined
homestead. "The old man at our billet was tellin' some of us about it.
The first shell went plunk through the roof and two children and the
mother were bowled over."

"Killed?"

"I should say so," mumbled my mate; then, "There's one comin' our
way." Out over the line of trenches it sped towards us, whistling in
its flight, and we could almost trace by its sound the line it
followed in the air. It fell on the pool in front, bursting as it
touched the water, and we were drenched with spray.

"'Urt?" asked Bill.

"Just wet a little."

"A little!" he exclaimed, gazing at the spot where the shell exploded.
"I'm soaked to the pelt. Damn it, 'twill frighten the ducks."

"Have you ever shot any living thing?" I asked my mate as I tried (p. 135)
to wipe the water from my face with the sleeve of my coat.

"Me! Never in my nat'ral," Bill explained. "But when I saw them ducks
this mornin' I thought I'd like to pot one o' em."

"Its impossible to see anything now," I told him. "And there's another
shell!"

It yelled over our heads and burst near our billet on the soft